1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a low profile structure and, more particularly, to such a profile structure having an extending connector.
2. Description of Related Art
Due to the design limitation, a low profile external card has a width capable of accommodating two connectors only. In many cases, a third connector may be necessary for a low profile external card, for example, a multipurpose display card of low profile design requires a VGA connector, an RCA connector and a DVI connector. According to the present techniques, it is difficult to add an extending connector (third connector) to a low profile external card.
Currently, there are two ways to add a third connector to an external card.
FIG. 1 is a schematic drawing showing a third connector connected to an external card according to a prior art design. As illustrated, the external card 1 includes a PCB (printed circuit board) 11, a first connector 121, a second connector 122 and a third connector 123, wherein the PCB 11 has a first area 111 and a second area 112.
The first connector 121, the second connector 122 and the third connector 123 are connected to the PCB 11 physically, i.e., the respective pins of the first connector 121, second connector 122 and third connector 123 are directly connected to the PCB 11.
The width d1 of the first area 111 is the width of a standard low profile structure. Because of the low profile design, the width d1 of the first area 111 can only accommodate the first connector 121 and the second connector 122. In order to accommodate the third connector 123 on the PCB 11, this design adopts a known Full High PCB design, i.e., the external card 1 has the aforesaid second area 112 extending from the first area 111 for the installation of the third connector 123. However, this design is not a low profile design. Further, the extra material for the second area 112 greatly increases the manufacturing cost of the PCB 11.
FIG. 2 is a schematic drawing showing a third connector added to an external card according to another prior art design. According to this design, the external card 2 includes a PCB 21, a first connector 221, a second connector 222 and a third connector 223. The first connector 221 and the second connector 222 are directly connected to the PCB 21, i.e., the other end 2211 of the first connector 221 and the other end 2221 of the second connector 222 are provided at the top of the PCB 21 and their pins are directly connected to the PCB 21.
Please note that the aforesaid third connector 223 is not directly connected to the external card 2. Namely, the width d3 of the PCB 21 is the width of a standard low profile structure that does not accommodate the third connector 223. Therefore, the third connector 223 is electrically connected to the PCB 21 through a flat cable 23.
This low profile external card saves a significant amount of PCB material, however because the PCB 21 has many high-frequency signal circuits, capacitors and inductors, suspending the flat cable? over these high-frequency signal circuits, capacitors or inductors may cause interference with the signal transmitting from the flat cable 23 to the third connector 223, and such interference may result in a signal error, affecting circuit operation.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a low profile external card having the third connector that has a low manufacturing cost and high signal quality